Apple Wins Access to Information on Android Development History and Motorola Acquisition Talks

That's fascinating. How exactly can you "willfully exploit" something that by its very definition is FREE SOFTWARE. Java has been put under the GNU General Public License by SUN before Oracle acquired the company. I find playing the patent game on a technology that was made available as free software rather absurd.

Let me make this point clear. I don't know much about the GNU GP License and I've no idea what Oracle was beating at. All right? In the past I've never ever written about Oracle Vs Google because I haven't followed the case at all and I've no specifics whatsoever. My main intention was that even though some of the critical emails existed, Google explicitly hid them as they never existed. Very analogous to the situation above, a lot of confidential info will be missing in the ruling. That's all. Understood?

Android itself is also free software. While a system might be require a license from Google to get access to the Android Market and while most companies require assistant from Google to get the software running on their hardware, it nevertheless is open source software and can be used by anyone.

Understood, but that has nothing to do with this case. All I know is that Oracle is not that stupid. But again, don't discuss the specifics with me. I have no idea about them.

But regarding those eMails... Will we also get access to the eMails from Steve Jobs in which he orders his employees to rip off the LG Prada? And what about those emails in which he decreed to rip off Android's notification system? And that whole iCloud concept... Doesn't that look awfully familiar to what Google provides for their Android devices?

Say what you want, but you've been irresistibly foul mouthing Apple/Apple fans/iOS/OS X on these forums. You've never once left an opportunity to speak good of Android. But lets make some thing clear.

Apple had a case -- they got access to those documents. Just like Samsung got access to iPhone 4 firmware source-code (?) and some of the official documents from Apple for sales in Australia and contracts with Qualcomm. Lets put that rhetoric aside.

Moreover, the cloud concept existed in 1999. Apple successfully implemented it with iBooks. What part of iCloud was ripped off from Google? You mean 'sync'? Sync existed in the form of 'Email', 'Contacts', 'Calendar', 'Preferences', 'Widgets', 3rd party APIs in MobileMe. Moreover, iTools existed long before Google entered these sophisticated cloud services. As for notifications, its been beaten to death, the only part where it appears Apple copied was the drop-down gesture. That drop down gesture has been part of Symbian, WindowsMobile, iOS SBSettings; nothing new. But definitely props to Google for popularising it. Moreover, there aren't 1000s of ways of implementing those gestures. Swipe from bottom was taken by WebOS - left/right are absurd and awkward (EDIT: Just like the ****ed up notification centre in OS X Mountain Lion) and swipe from top existed before Android. Research your stuff before you speak openly about it. Enough said.

Anyway, who cares anymore. Apple has always been the sue-happiest company in the industry. And now, since there haven't been any real innovations since the introduction of the first iPhone, apparently litigation is all that's left for them to do.

Wonder where the iPad came from - AirPlay, Siri, tonnes of other innovations. But I guess for you android folks, more RAM and more Cores are the real innovations. No wonder.

EDIT: I don't wish to sound condescending. Apple is not the only company innovating period. There are companies who spend 2-3 times what Apple spends on R&D. But there's hardly a company out there out-innovating Apple with subject to the products Apple is releasing. NONE.

Don't bother replying to comment, please.

Thanks.

I am not a fan of Android as a platform, but it is different and 'deserves' to continue. That was all opinion, of course.

I'm a pretty big fan of iOS and consider Android not very different. Microsoft's approach to mobile phone software on the other hand is very different.

I've had the Lumia in my hands once and although I think the phone design itself is really ugly, Windows Phone software worked fluently and has a total different approach on how a smartphone should work when comparing it to iOS. Android feels very iOS'ish to me...

Time to boycot. Tired of this crap. iPhone hasnt changed in 5 years besides minor things. Look at pictures from the first iPhone OS, until now.. It has a different dock and wallpaper.

Android is taking them to the cleaners at this point.

You're right of course. Nothing new in five years. Nothing at all. I mean, other than the App Store, multitasking, iCloud, Copy and Paste, Siri, Gamecentre, iTunes in the Cloud, Safari Reader, folders, notification centre, iMessages, Newstand, Facetime, Airplay, Airplay Mirroring and a ****-ton of other features relating to everything from the camera to how you manage the OS.

Other than all that stuff and literally hundreds of other, smaller features nothing has changed because the main screen still looks fairly similar. Yeah, just like how Windows hasn't changed in two decades cause you still have a mouse pointer and folders on the desktop.

I find it really hard to have an opinion on these stories.

On the one hand, it's all wasteful and it would be nice if this sort of stuff didn't happen. On the other hand, I can't exactly wish that Apple would sit out while everyone else plays the lawyer game. That would end poorly for them.

So, basically: blaghhh

Time to boycot. Tired of this crap. iPhone hasnt changed in 5 years besides minor things. Look at pictures from the first iPhone OS, until now.. It has a different dock and wallpaper.

Android is taking them to the cleaners at this point.

Apple and it's $97 Billion in the bank beg to differ.

That's fascinating. How exactly can you "willfully exploit" something that by its very definition is FREE SOFTWARE. Java has been put under the GNU General Public License by SUN before Oracle acquired the company. I find playing the patent game on a technology that was made available as free software rather absurd.

The specifications for the language named Java is licensed under the GNU General Public License, but the executable Java platform is NOT free. This must be licensed from Oracle. Did Google create their own Java based on the specifications, or use Oracle's Java executable?

Android itself is also free software. While a system might be require a license from Google to get access to the Android Market and while most companies require assistant from Google to get the software running on their hardware, it nevertheless is open source software and can be used by anyone.

You can't use the latest Android version, Ice Cream Sandwich, without a licensing agreement from Google. While Google says that Android is 'free software', this is technically only true for older versions, not the most recent versions.

I take it that you haven't been around long enough to know that Apple has always been notorious for suing anyone who had a mouse in the basement and a trash bin next to his desk. (That metaphor actually is from the 1980s when Apple sued every company that came up with an own graphical user interface. And it's noteworthy here that Apple didn't invent the graphical user interface.)

Why spout lies? Apple only sued to protect it's GUI, that it bought the rights to use from Xerox.

The choice is Innovate vs Litigate, and the "new" Apple has sadly but not unexpectedly taken the latter course.

Give me back the "old" Apple, the one that was run by visionaries and engineers; not by accountants, lawyers, and hipster designers.

The problem is when Apple innovates, they get ripped off. If Apple sits back and doesn't protect their innovations, then they are basically saying "we'll show everyone how things should be done, feel free to come steal our stuff".

Fanboys War

For anyone to say that Google was not influenced in any way what-so-ever by the iPhone is either blind or just really stupid. Android was being demo'ed in 2006 and 2007, both of those times it was clearly an answer to the Blackberry. After the iPhone, Google obviously went back to the drawing board. If they didn't, why did it take almost two more years after the original unveiling of the iPhone before the first Android device was brought to market? iPhone Jan. '07 ... T-Mobile G1 October '08. Especially since Android was started towards the beginning of the decade. Furthermore, Google's answer to the iPad followed the EXACT SAME path, iPad Jan. '10, Honeycomb March '11. I mean honestly, where exactly is Google leading? They didn't even have the foresight to see the tablet market, they were trying to push ChromeOS onto netbooks. They were going after what was already out there, not trying to think of any new possibilities.

Sorry, but Apple changed the mobile UI paradigm. True Android doesn't look exactly like iOS, or Windows Phone Metro isn't even close, but the fact is, Apple came in and changed how people thought about user interfaces on mobile devices. Before the iPhone, yes there were grids of apps on home screens, but EVERY UI was point-and-click, and menu driven just as it had been on full desktop OS's decades prior.

:apple: for life

But regarding those eMails... Will we also get access to the eMails from Steve Jobs in which he orders his employees to rip off the LG Prada?

Why do you continue to spread false information? Surely every phone is copying the LG Prada. Perhaps the facts too difficult to understand for some people.

iPhone vs. LG Prada nonsense
http://gizmodo.com/261172/settling-this-iphone-vs-lg-prada-nonsense

In addition,
December 12, 2006: LG Prada announced (by then, many companies knew that Apple will introduce a new phone, and many tried to "announce" their product ahead of Apple's)
January 9, 2007: iPhone unveiled
January 18, 2007: official press release showing image of LG Prada

iPhone: 8GB internal storage
LG Prada: 8MB (not GB) internal storage
there are other major differences of course

Anyway, who cares anymore. Apple has always been the sue-happiest company in the industry. And now, since there haven't been any real innovations since the introduction of the first iPhone, apparently litigation is all that's left for them to do.

no innovation? There are no words to address that level of ignorance so I'll just say that and let it be.

Apple has to litigate when companies infringe on their patents. Software patents on their face are debatable because the logos can be TM'd, the code can be Copyrighted and then the interface can be patented. But it's not like their paranoid- they have tens of billions in the bank so they're doing something right. Companies are copying Apple's designs, both physical and digital, left and right. Their only legal recourse is the courts.